Aontú Leader and Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín has castigated Mícheal Martin’s statement that the 41% increase in evictions are simply part of the ‘churn’ in tenancies. An Teachta Tóibín stated:
“The statement by the Taoiseach is exceptionally callous. Last month the government introduced a law with the expressed objective of increasing rents. It also led directly to an acceleration in evictions. Reducing these families to churn or to collateral damage is shocking. These are real people whose lives have been upended by a roller coaster of disastrous housing policies. This government is creating this so called ‘churn’ and families are suffering disastrously as a result”.
“Many of these hard-working families are caught in the government’s “middle-income trap” where they are “too wealthy” for a local authority house but “too poor” to survive the rental market. They are watching their children, miss developmental milestones for crawling and walking, due to the lack of floor space in hotel rooms. They are kettle cooking, pot noodles on the floor of a homeless hub for the want of basic cooking facilities. The equivalent of 200 classrooms of children, are living like refugees in their own country in homeless hubs”.
“The housing crisis is fixable. We need to remove the barriers to owning your own home. We need to remove the red tape and bureaucracy holding house building back. We need to properly staff planning authorities and An Coimisiún Pleanála. We need to make house building viable. Many builders are not building. Construction companies are sending their staff abroad to build abroad. We need to make house building viable by reducing VAT on home building”
